Better late than never

Sorry to be a little tardy on today’s blog.

Since we’ve been here in the last two weeks, we have been super fortunate to fall into a great group of friends that are around our age. We’ve been hiking and done dinner with them a couple of times but last night was our turn to host. So, we had the crew over for potluck and Pictionary. Good times!

After sleeping in blissfully this morning, I got up and made us some good ole’ fashioned War Eagle Mill pancakes (I had the mix shipped before we left). As we stuffed ourselves we got a skype call from Marma and caught up on all the latest Fayetteville news.



Scott (right) downtown



As the afternoon rolled around we decided to be super tourists and head down town to look in the local shops. There were some really beautiful sculptures made out of whale bone, mammoth ivory, and Oosik. Oosik, what’s that? Well I’m glad you asked. It’s a bone from a walrus that was used, most commonly, to make tools in the Alaskan villages. Oh, did I mention it’s the Walrus’ penis bone? Um, yeah, look it up, I’m not lying. Gross.

After a couple of hours in and out of the cold we decided to head home for a refueling snack. Once the electric blanket got plugged in, it was downhill from there. I picked up Harry Potter (I finally decided to do it) and started reading and reading. When I eventually looked up it was dinner time. Having been thoroughly entrenched in Hogwarts, we missed the rest of the daylight.

So, we decided to skip cooking and head over to the local Mexican/Pizza place. -- Why waste space with two restaurants when you can just combine? -- The chips and salsa were great but the pizza was fantastic. I guess it must a weird Alaskan thing to put fresh tomato slices on the top of the pizza, but everyone here serves it that way.

Tomorrow we’re going to visit the Russian Orthodox Church. Today was the Orthodox New Year’s Day so they are still celebrating. Since Russia was the previous owner, Orthodoxy is prevalent here. We look forward to learning more about the influences to this state both foreign and native.

All our love, S/A